Things Past
by LynstHolin
Summary: DRARRY Ten years after they spent a month together in Spain, Harry Potter meets Draco Malfoy again.


Prompts given: kitties, rainbows and angst

Warning: Not a happy-Drarry-ending fic! Non-explicit sexiness.

...

Harry felt ridiculous, sitting under a tree with a box of yowling kittens in front of him. He also had Lily next to him, asleep in her stroller; the boys were off with their mother enjoying the events of the day. Really, it should have been Ginny with the kittens. It was her cat-loving ways that had led to the Potter household being stuck with them, anyway. The sick, pregnant cat she had rescued out of a trash bin had died shortly after giving birth, and the six orphans had to be hand-raised. Now it was time to find them new homes. They were rambunctious two-month-olds, and none too happy at their confinement. "Just hold on, someone here is bound to take you all home," Harry said to them as he tried to soothe them by scratching their heads. He ignored the looks he got from passersby who were amused by the sight of the famous Harry Potter talking to kittens.

The event was billed as 'A Celebration of Horace Slughorn's Life.' The venerable potions master had been taken by dragon pox, like so many others of his generation. His will had stipulated no wakes, no mournful funerals. Being without heirs, he had wanted the last of his wealth to be used to throw a fair at Hogwarts, and he'd had the good manners to pass in July so that the weather was perfect. There were pie-eating contests, three-legged races, a bake-off (Molly was an entrant), a knowledge bowl, duels... All sorts of things, but Harry was stuck making sure the kittens didn't escape from their box and wander off. The giant squid was known for eating small animals that wandered too close to the lake, and then there was the Forbidden Forest and its hungry denizens not too far away. If anything happened to one of the fuzzballs, Ginny would be inconsolable, and Harry would have one more damn thing to feel guilty about.

Last night, Ginny had cried. No, she had _bawled_. Face red, mouth wide open, eyes scrunched shut. Harry had found himself apologizing, even though he hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. It had just been another day of the two of them having nothing to say to one another. The children were put to bed, and they sat and listened to a Quidditch game on the wireless, Harry on the couch, Ginny on the rocker across the room. And then the bawling had started. "I'm sorry," she had gasped out when she was finally able to speak; "All these years, I've been trying to make you something you're not. You're not who I need you to be, and you never will be." The D-word had not been used, but 'separation' had been mentioned. Harry couldn't imagine what they were going to tell Ginny's family.

Harry was roused from his grim thoughts by the piping sound of a child's voice. "Why do you have kitties?"

The speaker was a tow-headed boy that looked to be around the same age as Al. He was so cute, Harry couldn't help but smile at him. "I'm giving them away to people that want them."

The little boy's eyes went bigger and rounder than they already were, and he took off into the crowd hollering, "Daddy! Daddy!" A few moments later, he returned, holding the hand of a tall, blond man. When Harry saw who it was, a shock ran through him all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes.

The last time Harry had seen Draco Malfoy was during that August on Ibiza, right after the war. They'd both gone to the popular party spot wanting to lose themselves for a while, and had ended up finding each other. Four weeks together, and then they had parted, Harry going back to Ginny and his new career as an Auror, Draco returning to his own fiancee and a position in his father's company. "I wasn't expecting to see you here," Harry blurted out. The boy must be Scorpius, Harry guessed. He had seen his birth announcement in the Daily Prophet.

Draco smiled down at Harry. "Slughorn wasn't very impressed with me, but he was close to my father and grandfather when they were at Hogwarts. My father didn't want to come because he thinks it's being conducted in an undignified manner, so I'm here to represent the Malfoys." As he spoke in a voice that was deeper than Harry remembered, the little blond boy was pulling all of the kittens out of the box. "Scorp, what are you doing?"

"I want to see!"

"You look with your eyes, not with your hands." Draco squatted down and started returning kittens to the box. "Sorry. My wife has been wanting another cat, and Scorp is very enthusiastic about the idea."

"It's alright." Close up, it was apparent how much Draco had changed. His jaw was stronger, and covered with stubble that was the same pale gold as the hair on his forearms. Lines were starting to show on his face, his shoulders and chest were thicker, and his hands were bigger. A breeze wafted his scent to Harry, and even that was subtly altered, muskier and earthier. Of course, it made sense that a decade would have altered Draco from the skinny youth that couldn't grow a beard, the Draco that Harry had memorized with his mouth and his fingertips.

"Now, which one do you think your mummy would like best?" Draco asked his son. "The tabby? Or maybe the one that looks like a Siamese?" Draco had always dressed with style, able to pull off outfits that Harry would have looked idiotic in. Today, he was dressed like a tourist in Havana in the 1950s, wearing a Panama hat, a shirt with small palm trees printed on a beige background, white slacks, and canvas slip-ons without socks. And here Harry was in shorts and a tee shirt and (against the advice of every female in his life) man-sandals.

"I want this kitty," Scorpius said decisively, picking up a black kitten with white socks and hugging it to his chest.

"Not so tightly, now," Draco said, and Harry had a sudden, vivid flash of memory of a time when the blond had said those exact words to him. They had been together in a bathroom stall at a club, using poppers and fooling around. They had gotten so carried away that they had bent the door to the point where it wouldn't open, and had ended up crawling underneath it to get out. Heat ran all over Harry's body, and he could feel his face flushing. Draco looked at Harry and his eyes widened. By the rise of pink in his cheeks and the rapid pulse that started in that tender part of his throat (once upon a time, Harry had licked, sucked, and nibbled at that flutter), Harry guessed that Draco was experiencing some memories of his own. "We'll take this one. Thanks."

"No, thank _you_ for taking it off my hands."

"Let's show Mummy!" Scorpius was dancing around excitedly. Draco took the kitten from him and gave Harry another gorgeous smile. "I guess we're going now. Nice seeing you again, Potter."

Harry watched him walk away. _Merlin_. Draco had been attractive as a boy, but he was three times more alluring as a man. Harry indulged himself in a daydream, imagining what the blond might look like under his clothes, the sounds he would make with that deeper voice, how he would taste... And then Lily woke up fussing, forcing Harry's thoughts from Draco to the parental routine of feeding and changing. Then he sat her in his lap. "I need your help watching these ferocious beasts," he told Lily. "I couldn't possibly do it on my own." _The years I've with Ginny aren't a complete waste, _he told himself, _because I have my children_. It seemed selfish to want more than Lily, the boys, and a good career, but he did, he did.

...

Harry finally had given away all the kittens, and he handed Lily off to Molly. The dueling was about to start, and Harry was hoping to be able to still sign up. As he headed for the castle, the sky, which had been cloudless and blue all day, turned steely gray. An unseasonably cool wind started blowing, followed by a smattering of hail. Harry ducked into the nearest shelter, a shed that had been recently built near Hagrid's hut. There was already someone in the cramped space, one Draco Malfoy. The blond lit the tip of his wand and grinned. "We meet again."

"Yeah." Harry desperately racked his brain for something clever to say, something that would make Draco tilt his head back and laugh. "Nice weather, huh?" Oh, that was _clever_. It was hard to think with Draco so close that Harry could feel his body heat.

Rain hammered down on the thin tar-paper roof, and Draco had to raise his voice to be heard over it. "You look good, even though your wardrobe is still awful."

"Thanks, I guess." The men exchanged wry looks. The storm grew louder and more ferocious, and the shed rocked and creaked. "You think we'll be safe in here?" Harry shouted.

"Safer than out there." After that, they gave up trying to speak over the din. Harry couldn't keep his eyes off of Draco. In all his time together with Ginny, he had never had that clear, crystalline feeling that he had when he was with Draco, the feeling that made the colors of the world seem brighter, that made the days and the nights open outward and upward until it seemed like anything was possible. He had begun to think that those emotions were just a side-effect of the intoxicants that they had indulged in during those weeks, but Harry felt them creeping up on him again. The storm raised the hair on his arms, exhilarated him, made him feel young and reckless again.

Harry could see Draco's eyes dilate and hear his breath quicken. He reached out a hand and laid it on one cheek, stroking, liking the rough feel of the the stubble. _What would it be like to kiss him now_? he wondered, and then he was doing it. It was so different from kissing his wife; it was ineffably _masculine_. His hands found a strong back and shoulders, stroked a well-developed chest, reached down and pressed a slim pair of hips against his. The sound Draco made in his throat was like a deep purr, and his mouth opened under Harry's eagerly, letting his tongue in to explore and kiss ended when the rain did. They stared at one another as they tried to breathe normally again. "You're so damned tempting," Draco said hoarsely.

Reaching out and straightening Draco's collar, Harry asked, "Can I see you?"

"Merlin." Draco closed his eyes for a moment. "I shouldn't, but I want to. So much." He touched Harry's face. "I'll send you an owl, yeah?"

"Yeah," Harry echoed. When he opened the shed door, the sun was already shining, heating up the wet the rain had left behind to make it a sweltering afternoon.

...

The dueling was done, and Harry had placed third, after George Weasley (who had invented some appalling hexes over the years) and Theodore Nott. Passing through the Entrance Hall to go back outside, he saw Draco with his son and a woman that was vaguely familiar. Astoria Malfoy was petite, and still girlish looking in her trendy Muggle clothes. "Did you see the rainbow?" she asked Draco. "Scorp and I made a wish on it."

Draco playfully poked her in the stomach. "You don't wish on rainbows. You wish on falling stars. With rainbows, you're supposed to follow them to their end and find the pot of gold."

"Don't listen to him, Scorp," she told her son. "You can wish on anything you like. Rainbows, falling stars, kitties. Anything at all." Astoria was holding the black and white kitten, every so often giving it a nuzzle.

"Umbrellas, pasta-makers, underpants, belly-button lint, anything at all," Draco said, gently mocking.

"Shut up, Monkey-Butt," Astoria laughed, and she gave Draco a loud smooch on the jaw. Draco wrapped his arms around her waist and pretended to eat her face, making their son shriek with laughter. Then he saw Harry, who gave him an ironic salute and something approximating a smile before he walked away.

Harry flopped onto the first bench that he ran across. He stared a moment at the trophy he had just won before hurling it into the bushes. He had let himself imagine that, like him, Draco was in a sad, silent marriage, that he had fathered a child because it was the only way he could think of to bring joy into his life. Harry had imagined wrong. If Draco sent him an owl, he would not respond. But Harry had a feeling that there would be no owl.


End file.
